Professional Associations and Societies for Psychology & Psychotherapy Professions

A therapist's profile lists letters after the name and the body behind them. Neither says whether anyone is checking that practitioner's work.

Sometimes someone is. Often nobody is. The letters do not tell you which.

A professional association is a body a practitioner chooses to join. A regulator is a body the state gives legal power to. It licences practitioners, investigates complaints, and can stop someone practising. The two are often confused. That confusion is how an unverifiable credential comes to look convincing.

This page sets out the difference. It lists the psychology and psychotherapy bodies we could verify against their own official sites. It then shows how to check a claim yourself.

What a professional association is

A professional association is a membership organisation. Practitioners apply and meet whatever entry standard the body sets. They pay a subscription and go on its list.

The body writes its own rules. It decides who qualifies and publishes an ethical code. It can expel a member who breaches that code. In some countries a regulator uses an association's accreditation when setting its own entry requirements. That is part of why the two are so easily confused.

The Canadian Psychological Association presents itself as the national association for the science, practice and education of psychology in Canada, and says it supports more than 7,000 members.¹ Most of these bodies are the same: a national organisation for one profession, run by the people in it.

An association is not a licensing authority. Membership shows a practitioner met a voluntary body's entry standard. It does not show that a government has authorised them to practise.

Association, regulator, or both

Regulators exist to protect the public. Their powers come from law. The United Kingdom's Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care calls itself the country's independent regulatory oversight body for the regulation and registration of people working in health and social care.²

So an oversight body checks the regulators. Regulators hold legal power over the professions the law covers. Associations stand outside both. Three different things doing three different jobs.

A third arrangement is harder to classify. The UK Council for Psychotherapy holds a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority under its Accredited Registers programme.³ UKCP notes that the programme was created to bring standards to health and care occupations that are unregulated.³ Psychotherapy in that country is one of those occupations.

The oversight is real and independent, and covers governance, standards, training, the running of the register, and complaints handling.³ But a register built for occupations the law leaves unregulated does a different job from a licence.

Arrangements differ by country. None of this says how psychotherapy is handled in South Africa, Mexico, or Japan.

What membership actually tells you

Membership is not nothing. With the right body behind it, it tells you several useful things.

• Somebody checked a qualification. Membership grades are the levels a body admits people at, each with its own entry standard. They typically require a named degree, supervised practice hours, or both. The Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists sorts members into six categories with different requirements behind each.⁴
• There is a code the practitioner agreed to. Associations publish ethical standards. They can act when a member breaches them.
• There is somewhere to complain. It is not a statutory route, meaning one set out in law. It is a real one all the same. Complaints handling is one of the areas the UK oversight body assesses when it accredits a register.³
• There is a public list. Where a body runs a searchable register, a membership claim is checkable in a minute.

Here is what membership does not tell you. It does not tell you the practitioner is licensed where you live. It does not tell you they are competent with your particular difficulty. And it does not tell you whether they are still a member in good standing. Only looking them up shows that.

One more caution. Any group of practitioners can constitute itself, adopt an impressive name, and issue certificates. An organisation's name proves nothing by itself. What matters is whether it publishes a register you can search and standards you can read.

Psychology associations by country

Every organisation below was checked against its own official website while this page was written. Bodies we could not verify were left out.

Each entry gives the body as it describes itself. Every row names a jurisdiction, meaning the territory whose law applies. No body here carries authority beyond its own.

A body's absence from this table is not a judgement on it. It means we could not verify it to the standard the other rows meet.

Counselling and psychotherapy bodies

Psychology and psychotherapy are not the same profession. Their organisations are not interchangeable. Where a profession falls outside statutory regulation, its professional body does work the law would otherwise do.

In the United Kingdom, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy is the professional association for members of the counselling professions.¹⁵ It reports reaching over 72,000 counsellors and psychotherapists.¹⁶ It also runs accreditation schemes. These it offers as a quality status for practitioners, services and training courses.¹⁷

The UK Council for Psychotherapy holds the accredited register described earlier. Where the law does not licence a profession, the alternative is a voluntary register with independent oversight of how it is run.

So where counselling or psychotherapy is not licensed, there is no licence to ask for. Ask instead which register the practitioner is on, and whether you can search it.

Speciality certification is a third thing

Some credentials are neither membership nor licensure. Licensure is the permission a state grants to practise. These credentials certify that a practitioner has shown competence in a defined area, usually by examination.

In the United States, the American Board of Professional Psychology runs speciality boards with published general requirements, an application process, and maintenance of certification afterwards.¹⁸ NASP's NCSP credential works along similar lines for school psychology, and NASP states plainly that practising there requires state certification or licensure, with the NCSP earned on top of it.⁶

These credentials are worth something. A practitioner who has passed a board examination has been assessed by peers against a written standard. But they do not replace the licence that permits practice in a given jurisdiction.

The international and regional bodies

International and regional bodies are not a global licensing system. They coordinate national associations, run congresses and publish standards. Licensing stays with the national regulators described earlier.

Take the International Union of Psychological Science. Its members are organisations rather than individuals, and its rule allows only one such body to represent each country.¹⁹

The European Federation of Psychologists' Associations was founded in 1981 as the Europe-wide body for national psychology organisations.²⁰ Its full members are psychologists' organisations from 37 European countries, including all 27 member countries of the European Union.²⁰

The International Association of Applied Psychology celebrated its centennial over 1920 to 2020.²¹ It organises its work through divisions, from work and organisational psychology to traffic psychology.²¹

In the Americas, the Sociedad Interamericana de Psicologia was founded in Mexico City on 17 December 1951.²² It works in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French, and draws its governing board from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.²²

IUPsyS also recognises regional members. A country-by-country list leaves them out. Six of those bodies cover regions such lists tend to skip.

• Arab Union of Psychological Science²³
• ASEAN Regional Union of Psychological Societies
• Asia Pacific Psychology Alliance
• Caribbean Alliance of National Psychological Associations²³
• Central American Union of Colleges and Associations of Psychology
• Pan-African Psychology Union²³

A body missing from most English-language lists may still exist. The absence may only show that the list was written from an English-speaking starting point.

How to check a membership claim

The check is short. Five minutes is usually enough.

1. Get the body's full name. Initials are often shared. Search PSI in Ireland and you reach the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, the pharmacy regulator.²⁴ It has nothing to do with psychology.
2. Find the body's own website and look for a members' register or directory. Where no website can be found at all, treat the claim as unverified.
3. Search that register by name. A membership grade should appear. Note it, because grades differ a great deal in what they require.
4. Then find the regulator for your jurisdiction and search its register too. That check settles whether the person may lawfully practise where you are.
5. Where the profession is not regulated by law, the register is the check available to you. Look at who oversees it, and against what standards.

If a practitioner will not name the body they belong to, that is information. So is a body whose register you cannot find.

What this page does not cover

This page covers psychology, psychotherapy and counselling bodies. It does not cover psychiatry, social work, addiction counselling, or psychiatric and mental health nursing.

It does not list a body for every country either. Organisations whose websites could not be reached are not listed here; in one case no website could be found at all. A shorter verified list is more use than a longer one you cannot rely on.

Statutory regulators are a separate subject, handled separately. Who licenses practitioners in your country is a regulator question, not an association question.

Finding a therapist

Checking a credential is one part of choosing a practitioner. It tells you whether the claims on the profile are true. It does not tell you who is right for you.

Our guide on how to find the right therapist covers the questions worth asking before a first session.

A practitioner who is properly registered, and open about it, loses nothing by your checking. Most will tell you exactly where to look.

This article is for general information and is not a substitute for professional assessment or care. If this is affecting your life, consider reaching out to a qualified mental health professional.

References

1. [1] Canadian Psychological Association, Become a Member cpa.ca/membership/becomeamemberofcpa.
2. [2] Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, homepage professionalstandards.org.uk.
3. [3] UK Council for Psychotherapy, About UKCP (accredited register) psychotherapy.org.uk/about-ukcp.
4. [4] Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists, homepage iacp.in.
5. [5] American Psychological Association, About APA apa.org/about.
6. [6] National Association of School Psychologists, Who Are School Psychologists nasponline.org.
7. [7] British Psychological Society, homepage bps.org.uk.
8. [8] Australian Psychological Society, homepage psychology.org.au.
9. [9] New Zealand Psychological Society, homepage psychology.org.nz.
10. [10] New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists, homepage nzccp.co.nz.
11. [11] Psychological Society of South Africa, About us psyssa.com/about-us.
12. [12] Chinese Psychological Society, About CPS cpschina.org/about.
13. [13] Singapore Psychological Society, homepage singaporepsychologicalsociety.org.
14. [14] Sociedad Mexicana de Psicologia, Inicio sociedadmexicanadepsicologia.org.
15. [15] British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, homepage bacp.co.uk.
16. [16] British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, About us bacp.co.uk/about-us.
17. [17] British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Accreditation schemes bacp.co.uk/membership/accreditation.
18. [18] American Board of Professional Psychology, homepage abpp.org.
19. [19] International Union of Psychological Science, National Members iupsys.net/about/members/national-members.
20. [20] European Federation of Psychologists Associations, About EFPA efpa.eu/about-efpa.
21. [21] International Association of Applied Psychology, homepage iaapsy.org.
22. [22] Sociedad Interamericana de Psicologia, Sobre SIP sipsych.org/sobre-sip.
23. [23] International Union of Psychological Science, Regional Members iupsys.net/about/members/regional-members.
24. [24] Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI), the Pharmacy Regulator, homepage psi.ie.